Question about minor leagues affiliates

by cubs2410 on May 20, 2009 11:23 AM CDT Comment 19 comments

How does a city go about becoming an affiliate? Do the Cubs go after the city, or does the small town contact the Cubs?

Who in the Cubs organization handles the affiliates. I have found minor league player personnel, but never a minor league director. Is this part of Hendry's duties?

Also, how long ago did the Cubs sign with Peoria? How long does a contract with an affiliate usually last?

Thanks!

Go Cubs!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Al Yellon, managing editor (unless it's a FanPost posted by Al). FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

0 recs | Comment 19 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

From 1999-2004 the Cubs low A team was the Lansing Lugnuts in the Midwest League.

Lansing and the Lugnut owners were thrilled when they changed affiliations from the Royals to the Cubs- less thrilled when the Cubs jumped ship and affiliated with Peoria after the 2004 season. Word around town was the Cubs wanted the affiliate in Illinois and somewhat in Cardinal country. Don’t know if that’s true or not. They did seem to leave in the middle of the night, so to speak. It was strange. The Lugnuts did everything they could to keep the Cubs as the parent club, but it just wasn’t to be apparently. Too bad. My wife would not have been home nights if Ryno had been the Lug’s manager for two seasons (instead of Peoria).

Go Green! Go White! GO STATE!
King Leonidas: Spartans! What is your profession?
Spartans: HA-OOH! HA-OOH! HA-OOH!

by Zeke on May 20, 2009 12:51 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

The minor league clubs

are all independently-owned. (There are some exceptions to that, although not in the Cubs system. I’ll get into that later.) The parent club pays the salaries of the players and the coaches. The owners of the minor league teams takes care of all other expenses.

The teams are located where they in a process similar to what goes on in the majors. A league awards a franchise to an owner and a city. That owner can and does move the team when they get a better offer from another city. But the major leagues have no say in where a minor league team is located, other than if it violates its territorial exclusivity. (You couldn’t put a minor league team somewhere in the city of Chicago without the Cubs and White Sox permission, for example.)

So there are 30 minor league teams operating at five different levels—AAA, AA, High-A, low-A and short-season A. There’s also rookie ball, but most of that is handled in spring training facilities. So then there goes a dance for these minor league teams to get affiliates. The teams in the most desirable locations with the best facilities try to attract the teams that will give them the best attendance—usually the nearest local team or a team with a wide national following. You can imagine the Cubs are in high demand. The major league teams then play a game of musical chairs trying to snap up the most desirable franchises—the teams left standing get stuck with Bakersfield or Jacksonville.

Some teams in recent years have decided to avoid this by buying a minor league affiliate. I know that after two years in Lancaster, the Red Sox bought a minor league affiliate in the Carolina league so their High-A franchise wouldn’t have to ever be in California again. The Giants are in the process of buying the San Jose club—although that’s kind of a shot across the bow at the Athletics.

Affiliate contracts are usually for four years, although two and six year ones are signed. Not every contract is up every year, although the affiliate shuffle happens after even numbered years, I believe.

The Cubs are much more stabile in their franchises than a lot of other teams. They’ve been in Iowa since 1981—off the top of my head, only the Royals in Omaha have been affiliated with a minor league franchise longer. The Cubs did move their Midwest League team to Peoria a few years ago. They had lost it to the Cardinals in 1996 and had been trying to get it back ever since. The last move was in 2007, when the Cubs moved their AA franchise to Tennessee from West Tennessee. From what I understand, West Tenn has a nice ballpark, but very, very few fans which makes it rather undesirable.

Hope this helps.

by Josh77 on May 20, 2009 1:44 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs

Undesirable and Desirable Affiliates

Prime examples of that are located just 85 miles away from each other. The Memphis Redbirds still draw well, though not as well as they used to, and have St. Louis as their parent club. That works out great because of all the Cardinals fans in Memphis. However, up in Jackson at West Tenn, the actual number of fannies in the seats is often below 1000. Official attendance figures say otherwise because they go by ticket sales.

BTW, Jackson, TN, is a similar size to Kankakee, and small for AA baseball. Jackson, TN, has the Seattle Mariners for its parent club. There are plenty of Cardinals and Braves fans there, but I don’t many Mariners fans living in west Tennessee.

"The big possums walk late." - Harry Caray

by memphiscub on May 21, 2009 7:21 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Even when Jackson was the Cubs AA affiliate...

… they had trouble drawing. They have a nice park, fairly new (about 10 years old), but the market is just too small for Double-A. There are only about 50,000 people in Jackson, and it’s only about 90 miles from Memphis.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al on May 21, 2009 8:41 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Jackson, TN - Frontier League Market?

Jackson, TN, is admittedly is a little far south to be in the independent Frontier League. The Southern Illinois Miners in Marion are the closest team to Jackson. I think Jackson and Madison County could support a team in that league. I don’t know how that AA team has managed to stay there as long as it has. Pringles Park hosts some college games, including two with the University of Memphis, this season. It’s a nice place to go for me about six times a year. The Frontier League may be the way for Jackson, TN, to go long term.

I don’t know if the Diamond Jaxx would draw much better than they do now, even if they were affiliated with the Cardinals or Braves.

"The big possums walk late." - Harry Caray

by memphiscub on May 21, 2009 8:56 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're right...

… it’s probably more an independent league market… or perhaps, could fit in the Carolina League (High-A).

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al on May 21, 2009 9:04 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bakersfield

is a very undesirable location, but not for it’s population. It’s a booming (albeit somewhat poor) city that’s bigger than Des Moines, Colorado Springs and a lot of other AAA cities.

The problem is that they play in a 68 year old stadium that actually faces west—with the sun shining into the players eyes. Games can’t start until 8pm in June when the sun goes down.

So sometimes it’s not the market—it’s the stadium. There was a plan to build a new stadium for them that they’d share with CSU-Bakersfield, but the economy has destroyed that. Then they were going to move to the Carolina League along with High Desert, but the economy has destroyed that too—there aren’t any cities in the Carolinas willing to build a stadium.

by Josh77 on May 21, 2009 1:20 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

An interesting example of a switch in affiliation

Rochester was Baltimore’s top farm team from 1961 until 2002, which is the record for continuous affiliation. The Rochester ownership essentially dumped the Orioles after the 2002 season, replacing them with the Twins. The reason given was that, after a number of losing seasons, the lack of quality in the Baltimore farm system was affecting Rochester’s attendance. Here’s the CNNSI story about the switch. There appear to be more in-depth stories about it available online but they’re behind subscriber walls.

A couple other things – Josh is right that Omaha has the longest affliation followed by Pawtucket, which has been a Red Sox farm team since the early 70s. Also, here’s the historical list of Cubs minor league affiliates, if you want to see how their farm clubs have changed over the years.

"I'd rather play baseball than eat." - Andy Pafko

by LaddieRenfroe on May 20, 2009 5:36 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Good stuff

Yes, Iowa is the second-longest affiliation in the PCL (and Iowa was the American Association when ithe connection started). The Red Sox have been in Pawtucket since 1973.

The KC Royals have never had a AAA affiliate other than Omaha. That’s a big reason I don’t think the Cubs would move their AAA affiliation there. (There had been some speculation around here that the Ricketts would want the AAA in their hometown of Omaha.)

by Josh77 on May 20, 2009 6:12 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

The listings aren't quite right.

From 1952-1957 Los Angeles is listed as “other”, which is technically correct, because the PCL in those years had “open” classification, meaning they were attempting to position themselves as possibly a third major league.

But the LA Angels in those years were clearly the Cubs’ top farm team.

Thanks for posting that link. I did not know bb-ref had such lists; fascinating stuff.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al on May 20, 2009 6:56 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

baseball ref's site redesign

When baseball reference reformatted their site, they expanded the minor league section to include the full SABR minor league archive – teams, affiliations, and stats that run back into the late 19th century. The player stats are pretty limited but it’s a huge improvement on bbref’s previous minor league section, which had only extended back to 1992 before the additions.

It’s given me a new way to waste time, an entirely new trove of stats to troll through. From names that make me giggle, to players that hung around forever in the old minors and wound up with amazing career statz, and the record of a past Cub uber-prospects, I now have another reason to blame Sean Forman for my unproductive life.

Your quibble with the old LA Angels being listed as unaffiliated from 52-57 makes me curious…I know the basics of the story, the PCL’s switch to open classification in the silly hope that it could become a third major league. But I’ve never thought about how that situation applied to the Angels…did Phil Wrigley still own the club during the period? Were they technically unaffiliated but still reliant on strong ties to the Cubs? Sounds like I’ll have a way to kill some time as things slow down before the holiday weekend.

Finally, looking through the list of past Cub affiliates, I find it interesting that they have, at one point or another, been tied to a minor league franchise in almost every city in northern and central Illinois – Peoria, Bloomington, Decatur, Quincy, Rockford, Moline…

"I'd rather play baseball than eat." - Andy Pafko

by LaddieRenfroe on May 21, 2009 2:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't think

the PCL’s hopes of being a major league in the 1950s was “silly.” I’d certainly take the best teams of the PCL in that period over the Kansas City Athletics, St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles or the Pittsburgh Pirates. The population of the west coast was booming and by 1969, six of the eight franchises in the PCL in 1955 would be replaced with major league franchises (considering the Angels replacing the Hollywood Stars as LA’s second team). Only Sacramento and Portland aren’t major league cities now. Considering that MLB would expand by eight teams by 1969, adding eight teams 15 years earlier doesn’t seem far-fetched. Of course, there was the issue of the NL and AL not wanting to share the pie and get into bidding wars for players—but with the players flooding in from the Negro Leagues, there certainly was enough talent to go around.

In 1952, the only thing preventing the expansion of the major leagues to the West Coast was the cost and reliability of cross-country air travel. Early in the decade, it made more sense to create a separate major league on the West Coast that would compete among themselves than to make constant trips back and forth across the country. By the late 50s, advances in air transportation and telecommunications meant that the major leagues could move to California without having to share the pie with any minor league teams.

by Josh77 on May 21, 2009 3:38 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

a third league based on the west coast would've been silly...at the time

You’re right in saying that the west coast was ripe for major league baseball after WWII, perhaps even earlier than that. Moreover, you’re also correct in that the lack of modern air transportation was the only thing holding MLB back…

…from LA and San Francisco, which were the only two markets capable of sustaining franchises until the 1970s. The population was booming but the continuation of that boom into the 70s, 80s, and 90s is what has made Seattle and San Diego viable markets. Remember that aside from LA and the Bay Area, attempts to expand to the west coast either struggled or failed until the late 70s.

That being said, the PCL’s experiment with open classification was silly primarily because it lacked the financial backing required to support eight franchises comparable to those in either of the established leagues. While some of the PCL’s “stars” were paid wages comparable to what they would’ve received from big league teams, that doesn’t mean that those players would’ve been as successful in the NL or AL. For example, Steve Bilko probably made as much money playing for LA in the mid ‘50s as he would’ve gotten from a big league team but that doesn’t mean he would’ve hit 50+ homers in the AL or NL (well, maybe he could if he played half his games at the other Wrigley Field). To truly become a “major” league, the PCL would’ve had to instigate a bidding war for the services of real star players, not unlike what the AL did at the start of the 20th century. At no point in their half-baked scheme did the PCL’s backers try to do so and, absent such an attempt, they could make no claim to being a third major league.

Even if the LA teams or the SF Seals had invested the requisite money in salaries, the San Diego and Seattle PCL franchises, much less Sacto and Portland, certainly didn’t have the money to lure established big leaguers out to the coast. Moreover, claiming that the best PCL teams were better than the worst teams in the majors doesn’t mean that the PCL, on the whole, could reinvent itself as a true major league. Perhaps the best teams from the coast were as good as the ‘52 Pirates but that’s not saying much…akin to wondering if the best team in Japan could’ve beaten the ’03 Tigers.

"I'd rather play baseball than eat." - Andy Pafko

by LaddieRenfroe on May 22, 2009 2:54 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Interestingly enough,

the Iowa Oaks (the former name of the I-Cubs) were affiliated with the south-siders up to the end of the 1980 season. I may take some time on a day off and pop down to the central library here in DSM to see what I can dig up on that occurance at some point. I’m guessing there were some interesting letters to the editor of the Register on that topic.

Judd Sirott is responsible for EVERYONE'S injury.
Bradley watch -- out 10 games of 36

by znohitter on May 20, 2009 7:27 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes

And on August 1, 1979 the White Sox fired Don Kessinger as their player-manager and replaced him with the manager of the Iowa Oaks: Tony LaRussa.

by Josh77 on May 21, 2009 2:29 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Among the players who played for Iowa...

… in its last couple of years as a White Sox affiliate was Bobby Douglass, the former Bears quarterback.

Yes, that’s true. Bill Veeck thought he had a great arm and could be turned into a relief pitcher. At age 30, he signed with the White Sox and pitched four games for Iowa.

Here’s his minor league record.

Maybe znohitter can come up with more information. I know there was a photo of him in an Iowa uniform published in one of the Chicago papers at the time.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al on May 21, 2009 8:44 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

If I remember Bobby Douglass

He had a terrible arm but could run like the dickens.

Maybe Veeck wasn’t such a genius after all.

by Josh77 on May 21, 2009 1:21 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

No, he actually had a great arm.

He used to overthrow his receivers all the time. If he had taken up baseball instead of football, he might have been a power-pitching lefthander.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al on May 21, 2009 5:04 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

1957 Memphis Chickasaws

I didn’t know they were affiliated with the Cubs. I see that Glen Hobbie was with that team. I know the old, old Chickasaws (not to be confused with the 1978-1997 Chicks) were affiliated with the White Sox for a long time. Luis Aparicio played for the Chickasaws. Russwood Park was their home. It is no more because the park was made of wood and burned to the ground in a huge fire in 1960.

"The big possums walk late." - Harry Caray

by memphiscub on May 21, 2009 7:12 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs